scAD Wars: Burger King SpongeBob
scAD Wars is brought to you by Advertising Design professor Sean Trapani’s Copywriting for Broadcast class.
PAUL EISELSTEIN
Eve, you puritan prude.
This isn’t the best commercial in the entire world. It’s not even worthy of a silver SCADDY. But you’d see that the spot is quite hilarious if you get your nose out of the air and enjoy the simpler things in life.
If you’d let go of your righteous indignation and put down that Starbucks triple whip, you’d appreciate the playful creativity that went into this commercial. Square-bottomed dancers shaking their money makers to Sir Mix-A-Lot is definitely a big step up from Old Navy jingles and Chris Brown singing about chicken nuggets.
I don’t know when hip hop and fast food decided to team up, but if they are going to I think that this commercial is has the perfect amount of corniness to advertise a meal to parents of kids who like SpongeBob.
I bet you’re going to attack the appropriateness of big booty to hawk kid’s meals, but these spots aren’t running during Sesame Street. If parents let their kids stay up late to watch “South Park,” then shame on the parents.
You want art? Go to the Jepson Center. You want corny crude entertainment that gets people talking (and people buying), then turn on the television to a spot like this one.
Like Sir Mix A Lot says at the end, booty is booty, and CP+B, Burger King’s ad agency, has brought in plenty of booty with this spot.
Maybe if you removed that upturned nose from your own booty you would see my point.
EVE EDMONDS
Paul, you are a shameless force of disintegration and degeneration.
Let me begin by saying that I feel disgusting for even watching this polluted advertising dribble. Being a decent, intelligent human being, I am in awe of the fact that this commercial warrants a debate, while you giggle away.
But here I am trying to put words together to once again talk about the monster that advertising and nitwits like you have created.
As a society, we have come to a standstill. We have been so bludgeoned by the overflow of media that we are forced to lower our expectations, take what we are given and laugh at what is not funny. I watched this spot three times, and while I was not laughing, I found myself wincing in pain.
I honestly do not believe that this will sell more burgers than a product shot with a price next to it. Why would it? What does SpongeBob have to do with anything? After watching this spot, the only thing that I remembered was a tall order of square butts, not the fact that the faceless Burger King was even present.
Who is this commercial targeting? I know for a fact that it is not me. I find nothing in this spot and I would love to spit it back in the faces of the square butts sitting in their corner offices pitching a spot that combines cartoons, hamburgers and ill-formed cabooses.
Everyone knows the lyrics to that brainless song, but I just want to remind everyone of something: this isn’t the Rail at 2 a.m. after seven beers and a Jell-O shot. This is our career. This is millions of dollars down the drain. This is a company’s image. This is what is going into our brains. And this is what we are about to go out into the real world and create.
Paul, this might be the funniest concept you could dredge up after an all-night Irish Car Bomb adventure, but is it the funniest stuff that the “hottest shop” in advertising can come up with?
The answer is no. And you don’t have to be a square to see it— butt or otherwise.
